Professor John Duncan (1796-1870)

Professor John Duncan (1796-1870)

JAMES BARR, M.A., B.D., D.D., F.B.A.

Although John Duncan was a predecessor of mine, I have to admit that I
never knew very much about him, and what I have to say today depends
very largely on what I have been able to glean from the familiar printed
sources and works of reference.1 Some anecdotes circulated in New
College when I was a student; I remember James S. Stewart telling one.
According to this story, it was rumoured among the students that
Duncan, being exceptionally learned, said his personal prayers in
Hebrew, and a group of students stole up quietly to the door in order to
listen to this phenomenon. What they heard was Duncan saying,
“Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, look upon a little child”. Stories of that
kind are typical of the Duncan tradition.

What I have been unable to discover is where and from whom he
learned his Hebrew in the first place. As is well known, he wrote very
little, and most of his output is in the form of aphorisms and short
speeches collected by friends and admirers. In the most quoted such
volume, the Colloquia Peripatetica (sub-titled Deep-Sea Soundings ),
edited by William Knight (1870), there is practically no mention or
citation of any Hebrew word, while Greek is fairly common." In 1839

This is the original text of the “Words of Remembrance” spoken by Professor James
Barr at the Rededication of Duncan’s gravestone in the Grange Cemetery, Edinburgh, 4
July 1996. An edited and abbreviated form, lacking the footnotes, was published in New
College (Edinburgh) Bulletin , Anniversary Issue, 1996. I want to express my especial
gratitude to Mr David F. Wright for his swift and valuable aid in making literature
accessible to me, as well as for much understanding and kindness in all arrangements for

the ceremony.

2

The same is true of the “Miscellaneous Sayings” collected in D. Brown, Life of the
late John Duncan, LL.D. (Edinburgh, 1872), 400-32. One saying quoted in Brown, John
Duncan, 404. reads: “ The Greek and Hebrew minds. - “The Greek mind was abstract;
the Hebrew concrete” - not so very original a thought, but perhaps one that agrees with
Duncan’s own strong tendency towards the abstract. Again Brown, John Duncan, 405:
“The Hebrew language is peculiarly rich in religious-moral terms, though scantly enough
in others. The reason is evident, it chronicled a Revelation”. There is nothing special or
profound in this. Cf.. W. Knight, Colloquia Peripatetica (Deep-Sea Soundings) being
Notes of Conversations by the late John Duncan, Ll.D., with the Rev. William Knight

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he applied for the Hebrew chair of the University of Glasgow, the
previous professor having been moved to the chair of Moral
Philosophy. In his letter of application he stated that “for upwards of
fifteen years I have been a daily and delighted student of the Hebrew
Bible, and during the last I have contracted a pretty intimate
acquaintance with the principal Rabbinical writers”. He added that he
had done studies in Syriac, Arabic, Persian (“a long time ago”),
Sanskrit, Bengali, Hindustani and Mahratti, though in some of these he
claimed no more than to have looked into the Gospels in that language.
He was not appointed to that Glasgow chair but anyway, if we may
reckon back his devotion to Hebrew, fifteen years would take us to
around 1 824. It was then, when he was a student in the Divinity Hall of
the Established Church (he began, of course, in the Secession, moved
early to the Church of Scotland, and at the Disruption, as we know,
opted for the Free Church) that much of his study must have been done.
“Hebrew was his chief delight at this time, and with it the cognate
tongues”, writes David Brown of this period;3 one can understand it,
perhaps, for Duncan, though ending up as a pillar of pious orthodoxy,
had gone through numerous changes and conversions, being at various
times an atheist, a Sabellian, a Unitarian, a theist who was not
“converted to God” and so on. It looks as if this time of quiet belief and
religiosity, when he was “converted to theism but not to God, to

(Edinburgh, 1873), 80, where we hear that “the Shemitic mind is more receptive than
imaginative. It seems to have received a gift from above, and preserved it, for it was not
creative like the Greek mind”. In comparisons of language and intellect, Duncan was
more interested in the difference between Plato and Aristotle (e.g. Colloquia , 23f.) than
in that between Greek and Hebrew. Again, in his Inaugural Lecture “The Theology of the
Old Testament”, though the importance of Hebrew study is emphasized as one would
expect, the lecture contains no reference to any Hebrew word apart from one phrase
cited, but hardly commented on, on p. 137; while Greek is much more obvious: for
instance, on p. 136, where Duncan says that sin “not only deserves orge, but is in itself
echthra”, he uses the Greek words and makes no mention of the Hebrew terms that
might be relevant.

Brown, John Duncan, 83. Cf. “The Theology of the Old Testament" , which
expresses (p. 1 24) the wish that two sessions might be devoted entirely to exegesis, to the
study of Jewish antiquities, and to “ the acquiring of such acquaintance with the
languages cognate to Hebrew, as is needful to a full and scholar-like knowledge of that
ancient tongue ” (my italics).

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Christianity but not to Christ’4 may have favoured his linguistic studies
well. Though still in a sort of student status, he was trying to assemble a
small group to study Hebrew with him. I suspect he was basically self-
taught.5 He was a language-learner rather than a linguistic scholar.6

However he learned his Hebrew, all voices agree that he taught it
badly. The College eventually appointed A.B. Davidson as coadjutor
and later successor because it was recognized that Duncan was
“impossible” at this.7 One reason for this was that, though he came

4 Chapter heading of Brown, John Duncan , 7 1 .

5 He could have learned some Hebrew in the course of his early studies at Marischal
College, Aberdeen, but I have not seen any evidence of it. Part of the reasoning behind
his long letter of application for the Glasgow professorship was the fact that he had no
one to write a certificate for him, which I take to imply that he had no authorized teacher
to write a recommendation for him.

6 “Through life languages were a passion with him, and none came amiss to him,
however remote from those usually studied, and whether likely or not to be of practical
use to him” (Brown, John Duncan, 84). Among such languages were “a Turkish
grammar” which he was “engaged in writing for the troops in the Crimea” {ibid., 100);
for Gaelic “he attached himself to some of the Highland students, that he might acquire
some knowledge of the Gaelic language”, ibid., 93 (with Gaelic he seems to have had
little success); he “hunted out the Ethiopic and Armenian alphabets, had got hold of the
principal verbs and nouns, and had got through ten of the Psalms in Ethiopic - all in one
week”, ibid., 84-5. While writing his letter of application to Glasgow University he spent
considerable time in “amusing though rather tedious dissertations on the basis, for
example, of that composite language, the Maltese”, and only with difficulty was
restrained from including all this material in his application {ibid., 283). What about
Hungarian, which should have been a prime example? According to Brown, John
Duncan, 317, the quick impression made by Duncan in Hungary rested on his fluent
Latin - an achievement which doubtless goes back to his early studies at Aberdeen.
Indeed, he soon set himself to learn the Magyar language, but “did not attempt to speak
it, but confined himself to the right understanding of printed books”. In modem times
Professor G.W. Anderson (in his article ‘Two Scottish Semitists”, Vetus Testamentum
Supplements 28, 1975, xv) referred to Duncan as “a man of vast linguistic erudition” and
adds the anecdote that it was said that “he could talk his way to the Wall of China”. This
“vastness” is what was thought, and perhaps what Duncan wanted to be thought. More
likely, he had only a smattering of most of these. His extremely slight use of even
Hebrew in his conversations and arguments suggests something very different.

The word “impossible” is not my own: I borrow it from Disruption to Diversity:
Edinburgh Divinity, 1 846- 1 996, .e dd. D.F. Wright and G.D. Badcock (Edinburgh, 1996),
50: “the orthodox and deeply pious John Duncan was nevertheless impossible

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as a

before the era of source criticism and emendation, he was a “modernist”
in regard to comparative philology, and where students were struggling
with the simplest rudiments of Hebrew it was - and still is - not a good
method to elucidate it with examples from Arabic and Syriac. Secondly,
he could never keep to the point, and any intellectual question, however
minute, caused him to survey a vast ground of deep and metaphysical
problems. This tendency was accentuated by his failure to make any
preparation for almost any of his lectures. Even his lecture at the
inauguration of the College in 1850 was, apparently, prepared only
through the prescience of his colleague Dr Buchanan, who went to
Duncan’s house the evening before to make sure that the lecture was
ready. Not a word had been written. He had, Duncan said, other things
to attend to than writing lectures. “But what else”, Buchanan
expostulated, “can you have to attend to more important than the
preparation of your lecture?” “The state of my own soul” was Duncan’s
reply. Buchanan insisted on sitting down, taking pen and ink and
forcing Duncan to dictate a lecture to him.* * * * * * * 8 Thirdly, his personal

teacher of Hebrew”. Almost all comments on his teaching are adverse. Thus Brown,
John Duncan, 85: “Of teaching, he was rarely without as much as he had time for, but

seldom did he make enough by it to keep him in comfort - his intolerable irregularity

and slovenly habits generally losing him the pupils whom his known attainments never
failed to bring him”. For adverse comments on his teaching of Hebrew see the

testimonies of various former students collected in Brown, John Duncan, 355ff.; cf. 358:

“his habits of mind totally unfitted him for the efficient teaching of elementary Hebrew,
or indeed for any kind of merely routine work’; 360: “the class, viewed as a class for the
teaching of Hebrew, was not very efficiently conducted. Sometimes the thing prescribed

was not taken up, but something quite different. And sometimes a discussion on

something incidentally emerging in the course of the lesson would occupy most of the
hour”. 365: “he was, in a sense, as a Professor, a failure”.

8 Brown, John Duncan, 388. Even so, Buchanan’s efforts were not wholly effective.
Even in its published form as “The Theology of the Old Testament", the text still
contains (132f.) a portion that looks like a paragraph but consists only of brief lecture
notes. It reads thus:

I will put enmity, &c. - Sacrifice - Clothing with skins - Covenant with Noah -
Covenant with Abraham — His seed - Sacrifice of Isaac - Confirmation of covenant
with Isaac and Jacob - Proclamation of Jehovah's name to Moses - The angel of
Jehovah, who is himself Jehovah - The whole ceremonial law - High priest - Day
of atonement - Daily service of the tabernacle - Isaiah liii — Psalm ii.,viii.,
xxii.,lxxx.,cx., &c.

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eccentricity was of phenomenal dimensions.9 Without ceaseless
vigilance from his wife he would never have known where he should
be, what classes he was teaching, which students he was supposed to
examine.10 Particularly noted in the literature is his inability to control
his hours of sleep. He took private students but they complained that he
was still in bed at the time when the lesson began and went fast asleep
immediately thereafter.* 11 It is recorded, conversely, that in one Hebrew

Does this mean that Duncan was going to discuss all these subjects but still, when the
rest of the lecture had been dictated, had not yet formulated what he was going to say
about them?

It may seem odd that material was actually published in this form. It is interesting
therefore that in the same volume the lecture by Dr Alexander Black, the Professor of
Exegetical Theology, ends up in the same way with half a page of unarticulated lecture
notes (ibid., 157f.).

9 I do not guarantee the canonicity of all the stories told, some of which I have heard,
perhaps with slight variations, of other Scottish divines of the same period. For instance
(A. Moody-Stuart, Recollections of the late John Duncan , LL.D. (Edinburgh, 1872),
118): on his wedding-day his niece sent him into his bedroom to get dressed. The idea of
being there may have suggested the sequence of undressing. Anyway, the hour for the
marriage arrived and the cab was there to carry him, but there was no sign of the
bridegroom. He was found in bed sound asleep with a Hebrew book in his hand. Apart
from the Hebrew of the book, something similar may have been told of many Scottish
professors.

This was, incidentally, his second marriage, to “a widow lady, Mrs Torrance”,
before he left Scotland for Pesth (ibid.,, 66). His first marriage was in 1837 to Miss Janet
Tower of Aberdeen. Note the following exchange (ibid., 59):

“I believe Miss Tower is a superior woman”, I remarked to a lady in Glasgow. “Of
course”, she replied, “none but a most superior woman would ever marry John
Duncan”.

The first Mrs Duncan died in 1839; see Brown, John Duncan, 267ff. Both the first and
the second Mrs Duncan are commemorated on the sides of his gravestone.

10 Moody-Stuart, Recollections, 88f.

1 1 Brown, John Duncan, 85. So again ibid., 102f., whose description is worth quoting
in full:

I had just taken my degree, and, intending to enter the Divinity Hall in the following
session, was anxious, before putting myself under the Professor of Hebrew, to get
some insight into the language from one whose attainments in Oriental literature
were so well known. I engaged with Mr. Duncan accordingly for a quarter’s
teaching, but being at that time in full employment, he could only, for a favour, take
me from six to seven in the morning - an hour that with his known habits gave me
little hope of getting much out of him. In truth, when I went to his class-room half

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class he assisted (as he thought) a student by explaining to him all the
thirteen conjugations of the Arabic verb and then following him into his
bedroom with additional matter, continuing with three further lessons
during the night, the last of them at about three o’clock in the
morning.12

Some of these aspects are so extravagant that they would seem to
make John Duncan into a figure of fun. This would be a mistaken
assessment. What are the other sides? One of them can be named with a
single word: Budapest, or Pesth as it was then called. Duncan obviously
struck many persons of discrimination in that city as a man of
extraordinary intellectual authority. He acquired the confidence of
aristocratic persons, he conversed learnedly with ecclesiastics of
various Catholic and Orthodox persuasions, he was warmly at home
with the Hungarian Protestants and did much for their church. All this
from a man whose background had been a narrow one, who had no
cultural preparation for what he was to find in the Austro-Hungarian
empire. The depth of character and authority that the Hungarians saw in
him must remain with us in our minds today, just as the connection of
New College with the Hungarian Reformed Church remains.

Secondly, the remarkable impact of Duncan upon the Jews of
Hungary and their acceptance and reception of him. There was
something in Duncan’s character that was powerfully worthy of
hearing. Afterwards people called him “Rabbi Duncan”, and they often
point to his aphoristic sayings. Yet I personally do not see much that is
rabbinic in that aspect of him: his sayings are too obviously deep in
Christian theology, orthodox and unorthodox, or else in general culture,
mainly Greek and Latin, some French and German, some international

the hour had usually elapsed ere he appeared, and often having slept in, he never
appeared at all. Thus my quarter’s teaching amounted to just about six weeks of
broken hours or half-hours. But beyond all price were these hours to me. His very
defects as an elementary teacher of grammar arose from qualities which made him
everything to me. Scarcely had we got beyond the alphabet when he plunged into
dissertations on the genius, history, and characteristic divergences of the leading
Semitic tongues, the philosophy of vocalization, etc.; passages from his great
master, Albert Schultens, were read and commented on, and soon we got into
Arabic, with Erpenius for our grammatical guide, and Golius for our lexicon.
Moody-Stuart, Recollections, 89.

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philosophy. But I could see that his personality gave an impression such
as a rabbi’s personality gives to Jews, and if so that nickname was not
without good cause. Both Edersheim and Saphir were learned and
deeply religious Jews, and the fact that they both became Christians
(and, eventually, Christian ministers) within a year or two of Duncan’s
arrival must mean something extremely unusual.

I end where I began, with his personal piety, which is what struck
people at the time, people who could judge better of that than they
could of his learning. Whatever he gained from his adventures in
atheism and unorthodoxy - if these adventures ever really took place -
he seems to have ended up with a combination of Calvinist orthodoxy
and a highly personal piety. And this was what impressed people. I
already mentioned how, when he should have been preparing the most
important lecture of his career, he said he had his own soul to worry
about. Similarly, it was customary for lectures to begin with a short
prayer. In Duncan’s classes, however, these prayers were often long
extended, and indeed it is recorded that on some occasions only the bell
which ended the lecture period made him aware that the lecture had not
in fact begun.13 Strongly convinced as he was, he was conscious also of
the times of doubt, dejection and desperation in his past.14 If he had
been a systematic thinker he might have ended up on one side, if he had

Brown, John Duncan, 362: “On one occasion the prayer that should have preceded
the lesson prolonged itself for the whole hour, and it was only the ringing of the bell at
the end of the hour that awoke him to a remembrance of the actual circumstances of the

case”. Cf. Also ibid., 371.

14

I leave to a footnote a question that it would be distasteful to raise in this speech
itself: namely, whether the reputation for humility in which Duncan was so often held
was deserved. “Of a lowly and loving spirit” is the wording of the gravestone, and this
rightly expresses the feeling which he left behind him in the hearts of thousands.
Humility was an essential part of his Calvinistic piety. Did it apply, however, in equal
measure to his awareness of his own knowledge ? Brown reveals another side when he
relates the composition of the famous letter applying for the Glasgow professorship. He
writes ( John Duncan, 282f.): “It would have astonished and amused any one who did not
know that most marked feature in his character, his consciousness of power in whatever
department of knowledge he had mastered - whether Languages, Philosophy, Theology,
or even General Literature - to hear how, humble though he was and eminently modest,
he could dilate on his attainments, his superiority to all he knew in this, to all but one or
possibly two in that, and so on”.

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followed out his biblical studies more methodically he might have
moved in a different direction altogether, as some colleagues and
successors were to do. As it was, he remains a highly idiosyncratic
figure and a monument in one person to the union of many sides in
Scottish culture as it was in that time.

Vanderbilt Divinity School,
Nashville, Tennessee

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Article “Duncan, John”, Dictionary of National Biography xvi. 167-8,
by “W.G.B.” (W. Garden Blaikie)

D. Brown, Life of the late John Duncan, Ll.D (Edinburgh, 1872)

J. Duncan, “The Theology of the Old Testament”, in Inauguration of
the New College of the Free Church, Edinburgh , ed. W. Cunningham
(London and Edinburgh, 1851), 123-42

W. Knight, Colloquia Peripatetica ( Deep-Sea Soundings), being Notes
of Conversations by the late John Duncan, Ll.d with the Rev William
Knight (Edinburgh, 1873)

A. Moody-Stuart, Recollections of the late John Duncan, Ll.D
(Edinburgh, 1872)

Disruption to Diversity: Edinburgh Divinity, 1846-1996, edd. D.F.
Wright and G.D. Badcock (Edinburgh, 1996)

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